cortical

English

WOTD – 22 April 2010

Etymology

From Latin cortex (“bark”), stem cortic-, + -al.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈkɔː.tɪ.kəl/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈkɔɹ.tɪ.kəl/

Adjective

cortical (not comparable)

1. (anatomy) Pertaining to the outer layer of an internal organ or body structure, such as the kidney or the brain.
   • 2023, Simon Mays, “The Macroscopic Study of Human Skeletal Paleopathology” (chapter 2), in The Routledge Handbook of Paleopathology, Routledge, →DOI, →ISBN, page 27:

     An adult male skeleton from Wharram Percy showed fine-grained subperiosteal deposits of new bone on multiple skeletal elements, together with fine cortical pitting […].

2. (botany) Pertaining to the cortex of a stem or root—the tissue that lies inward from the epidermis, but exterior to the vascular tissue.

Derived terms

• adrenocortical
• allocortical
• amygdalocortical
• archicortical
• bicortical
• cerebellocortical
• cerebellothalamocortical
• cerebrocortical
• cortical alveolus
• cortical column
• corticalization
• cortically
• cortical plate
• cortical reaction
• corticocortical
• cytocortical
• electrocortical
• endocortical
• epicortical
• exocortical
• extracortical
• frontocortical
• geniculocortical
• hippocampocortical
• infracortical
• intercortical
• intracortical
• isocortical
• juxtacortical
• koniocortical
• leucocortical
• leukocortical
• mesocortical
• microcortical
• midcortical
• monocortical
• neocortical
• neurocortical
• noncortical
• nucleocortical
• occipitocortical
• paleocortical
• pallidocortical
• paracortical
• pericortical
• posterocortical
• precortical
• prefrontocortical
• retinocortical
• spinocortical
• striatocortical
• subcortical
• thalamocortical
• transcortical
• tricortical
• unicortical
• visuocortical

Related terms

• cortex
• cortico-

Translations

anatomy: pertaining to the outer layer of an internal organ or body structure

• Catalan: cortical (ca)
• Finnish: kortikaalinen, kuori- (fi)
• Latin: corticālis
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: kortikal

• Polish: korowy (pl)
• Portuguese: cortical (pt)
• Russian: корковый (ru) (korkovyj), кортика́льный (ru) (kortikálʹnyj)
• Spanish: cortical

botany: pertaining to the cortex of a stem or root

• Catalan: cortical (ca)
• Finnish: kortikaalinen
• Latin: corticālis
• Polish: korowy (pl)

Further reading

• “cortical”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.

Anagrams

• crotalic

French

Pronunciation

• Audio (France (Vosges)):

  (file)

Adjective

cortical (feminine corticale, masculine plural corticaux, feminine plural corticales)

1. cortical

Further reading

• “cortical”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012

Interlingua

Adjective

cortical (not comparable)

1. cortical

Related terms

• cortice

Romanian

Etymology

Borrowed from French cortical.

Adjective

cortical m or n (feminine singular corticală, masculine plural corticali, feminine/neuter plural corticale)

1. cortical

Declension

Declension of cortical

		singular			plural
		masculine	neuter	feminine	masculine	neuter	feminine
nominative- accusative	indefinite	cortical		corticală	corticali	corticale
	definite	corticalul		corticala	corticalii	corticalele
genitive- dative	indefinite	cortical		corticale	corticali	corticale
	definite	corticalului		corticalei	corticalilor	corticalelor

Spanish

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /koɾtiˈkal/ [koɾ.t̪iˈkal]
• Rhymes: -al
• Syllabification: cor‧ti‧cal

Adjective

cortical m or f (masculine and feminine plural corticales)

1. cortical

Further reading

• “cortical”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8.1, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 15 December 2025